Review: 22 JUMP STREET, Charmingly Aware That It's A Sequel

Sequels are often rough things. Save for franchises
where the expectation of similarity is baked in, the second of a kind is rarely
as successful as the first.

Success, of course, need not mean in terms of
dollars and cents, but in terms of the creative package - rarely does the
second time 'round convey the same sense of wonder or pleasure as the first. We
humans are creatures of novelty, it seems, and even the most wondrous thing can
quickly become commonplace.

On the other hand, audiences are fickle.
Make a sequel too far astray from what made the first instance work and you're
now alienating expectations. These twin elements - fulfilled expectation and craving
for novelty - are the core element of any conventional cinema, but the
dialectic is made all the more challenging when it's a sequel to a successful
film. Expectations are higher, desire for novelty is greater.

It's a losing
proposition - at least, it must be admitted, on the creative side. Money-wise,
well, even the most mindless sequel tends to do OK, given that lack of novelty
and lowered expectations often fuel the box office.

This might seem like so much blather about
sequels in general, but the most amusing thing about 22 Jump Street is
that it's a film about exactly this impossible divide. The film is as
winking and post-modern about its status as a sequel as it can be without
falling into Mel Brooks self-parody.

22 Jump Street is a sequel about sequels. Its plot overtly echoes the previous
film, with characters often commenting on the fact. Things don't work when they
go astray from what worked the last time, only to resolve in satisfying ways
when they come closer to the previous method of plot construction.

The "Jumps" are film series first drawn, it
should be remembered, from the land of episodic television, where it's part of
the very fabric of these shows that things are just different enough to be
distinguishable, yet repetitive enough to be part of a continuous whole. 22
Jump Street takes the piss out of this factor, showing the fact in the audiences
face while at the same time reveling in the previous success.

By doing so, directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller are turning
things on their head. Instead of 22 Jump Street jumping the proverbial shark, it's
as if we're the shark, and the film is jumping over us, playfully squirting
vodka in our mouths with water pistols on one hand, giving the middle finger
with the other.

This is a film that bathes in its own
obnoxiousness, yet it never feels mean -spirited or hurtful. Part of that comes
down to the encore performances of leads Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill, two
Oscar-worthy actors delving into some of their baser bromantic instincts. If they
were in high school last year, then naturally college is the next trip. Fratboy
hijinx? Check. Football try outs? Check. Spring break vacation? But of course.
Yet all these tropes are worn with pride. It's the comedic example of the
Centre Pomidou - all the structural bits are exposed, the inside is mostly
empty, but you have to kind of marvel at both the imperiousness and bravura
nature of its presentation.

Many usual suspects make their return - Ice
Cube, Nick Offerman, Rob Riggle - but it's the new members of the ensemble that
make quite the mark. Having not seen the Lucas Brothers before, I genuinely
wasn't sure if it was one actor playing his own double, or the actual twins
seen on screen. Peter Stormare plays a particularly old-school, over-the-top
gangster craving the 1990s, Jillian Bell creeps the hell out everyone with her
cold, effective stare, and Amber Stevens does her bit to add some spice to the
film. In fact, I'd hope that Miller and Lord cast her not just for her beauty
and good comic timing, but for the fact that she provides a nerdy connection to
one of the film's jokes, as the young actress was "Cheerleader #1" in The Fast
and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.

It's something to be said that perhaps the
best joke in the entire film is the end-credit sequence, where Miller/Lord take
the sequel shtick up a whole 'nother notch. It'll no doubt be spoiled for some,
but I'd say it's well worth staying until the final moments roll.

No, the film's not as funny, or fresh as
the previous version, but it's charmingly aware of said fact. It's a film that
says "fuck it" and does it anyway, throwing caution to the wind and yelling "something
cool!" along the way.

More about 22 Jump Street

wow, excellent review, nails itI was a bit dissappointed with this one, because this has been done before (no pun there) and the meta-humor-thing is wearing kinda thin for me, but you are absolutely correct in the assesment that it is al done knowingly and with a lot of charm in this one... might like it better on a second viewing.